January 24, 2005

Eric Chomko wrote:

: Spirit Daily Update

: So, when confronted with bizarre Mars rock formations that defy
: description and beg investigation, what does Squeers and his band
of
: geeks do? They drive right by, turn the camera the other way, and
take
: vast panoramas of endless barren landscapes nearly devoid of
features.

: It's NASAs new faith based space initiative, when confronted with
the
: unknown, or difficult terrain, drive right by and look the other
way.

I think you are being overly harsh on Dr. Squyres.

I haven't even started on him. I will be a thorn in his side
for a long time to come.

During his talk about
Mars earlier this month he was quite informative.

Talking about date six months out of date, no doubt.

The fact that you see
something in the Martian soil equivalent to tea leaves and dinosaur
droppings, doesn't make the scientific community actually exploring
Mars
remiss.

If you show some geologists some rocks that they fully expect to
be basalts, then guess what they are going to see?

You should have been the PI for your own probe.

I am, they're called MER A&B. Unfortunately, our publicly funded
institutions see fit to withhold spectroscopy data from their
constituents.

Have you had a chance to investigate the RAT tool's findings when
used to
scrape rocks?

They're right here for everyone to see :

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spirit/micro_imager/

Not so the spectroscopy. You can look here, but you won't
find it anywhere, except data many months out of date.

http://anserver1.eprsl.wustl.edu/ant...eran_title.htm
http://anserver1.eprsl.wustl.edu/ant...eran_title.htm

Now, what about those fossils? :

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spi...PP2541L7M1.JPG

Adjust the contrast to bring out the symmetry.

And the rock monster tentacle :

http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/spi...PP1765R0M1.JPG

Notice the sheared off cross section structure
sticking right out of the ground.

Until I see some spectroscopy that definitively tells me otherwise,
as far as I can tell, there sure as hell was something weird
going on up on Mars, and until then, Squeers and his gang of geeks
can sweat bullets, because I've got their number, and I'm going to
be punching their buttons, until this is fully resolved.

The signs of water and sedimentation are everywhere here.
Something is extracting and reprocessing nutrients from
the rock, and building structures which then subsequently
dissolve, erode and dehydroxylate on the spot, leaving clear
patterns in the rocks and on the surface of the soil,
at both microscopic and macroscopic levels of organization.

If you can't see that, you simply aren't looking.
Thomas Lee Elifritz
http://elifritz.members.atlantic.net